The second book in the Retrievers series.
Some spoilers for the first book, Staying Dead.

Page count: 432
Publication year: 2005
Format: Ebook
Publisher: Luna

Wren is a Talented, or magic-using, Retriever whose job is to retriever stolen or lost objects. Sergei is her partner who usually does the desk jobs; finding work, doing the paper work, and making sure they are paid. They’ve been in business together for ten years but have recently started having feelings for each other.

New York is suffering from a very hot summer which is getting on everyone’s nerves. Added to that is Wren’s and Sergei’s romantic relationship which is, at best, uncertain. They talked about their feelings near the end of the previous job but they’re hesitant to change their existing professional relationship and friendship to a romantic one.

Also, during their previous job they managed to anger the Mage Council who is now making sure that the duo aren’t getting any work. However, in the previous book they agreed to be on retainer for a secret organization called Silence and now Silence has given them a job. Someone has stolen an old, and possibly powerful, manuscript. Unfortunately, the theft happened in Italy and Wren has a phobia about flying. As a Talent Wren controls electricity. However, when she’s afraid she tends to short circuit electronic stuff, such as metal detectors, which makes it difficult for her and Sergei to leave the country.

But they manage to get to Italy where they investigate the site of the theft which is an old monastery. However, Wren notices that the monastery has been built in such a way that it blocks Talent and electricity. Wren and Sergei become convinced that they haven’t been told much about the job at all. Sergei is a former Silence agent and he’s very angry that they’ve been kept in the dark.

The third point-of-view character is Andre Felhim who works for Silence. I got the feeling that he’s a middle manager; he has both underlings and bosses. He’s trying his best to do the job which turns out to be very difficult. He’s also Sergei’s former boss.

In addition to their more immediate job, something else is brewing. Fatae, who are creatures that don’t look like humans, are being attacked and discriminated against. Humans have apparently never gotten really along with the fatae but the tensions are now escalating to violence. Also, some loner magic users are getting fed up with the way that the Council is trying to police them and they are trying to organize the others to rise against the Council.

We’re told more about the magic system in this book which also means that the system gets even more complicated. This slowed the pace somewhat. I didn’t mind; on the contrary I like complex magic systems. We’re also told more about the training of Talents. Each youngster is trained by a teacher who is willing to take him or her as a student. There are no other qualifying terms for the teacher so they can have very individual styles and they don’t teach about everything.

Sergei’s and Wren’s relationship changes somewhat here. They are both used to being independent and doing things their own way, which means that the romance isn’t going to be an easy one. Sergei is the neat and tidy one who drinks tea, while Wren doesn’t care if she has a set of china or individual mugs, and she’s a coffee drinker. I really like this. It makes the relationship realistic.

While the start of the book is set in Italy, the duo soon returns to New York. Wren turned out to be a hero to the Italian lonejacks and I was very amused by the youngsters who tried to impress her.

Because of the several plot lines, the story feels a bit fragmented at places.

The people here aren’t black or white, and there aren’t clear good guys and bad guys.

James Asher is a former British spy. He used to travel around the world searching information and killing people for the betterment of UK. Finally, he was disgusted with his work and retired from the Service. Now he’s Philology don in Oxford and married to his youthful love Lydia.

It’s 1907 and Asher has lived a quiet life for seven years. One night he comes home and finds his household, including his wife, sleeping unnaturally. The cause is a vampire. Don Simon Ysidro wants Asher to work for him and if he doesn’t the vampire is going to kill his wife. Asher has no choice but to agree but he decides that he’s going to secretly gather information that will help him kill the vampire.

Ysidro tells Asher that there are several vampires in London and someone is killing them. So far, four vampires have been exposed to sunlight in their own, safe hiding places. However, Ysidro is very reluctant to tell Asher much about the killed vampires which is very frustrating to Asher. Slowly, he managed to find out more about the vampires, their habits, and even their physiology and powers. Unfortunately, Ysidro is the only vampire who wants Asher to investigate the case. The others, including the Master Vampire of London, would rather kill him. And of course, it’s quite possible that even if Asher manages to find the killer, the vampires aren’t going allow him to live with what he knows about them.

Asher is a very interesting character. He’s a scholar of linguistics and folk tales so he notes the speech patterns and accents of people around him. At the same time, he uses his skills as a spy and does his best find out everything he can about the vampires. One of his best assets in this is his wife Lydia. I loved the fact that the first thing he did was to tell her what is going on and she promptly becomes the main researcher.

He’s main goal, of course, is to keep Lydia safe but he starts to feel sort of comradely towards Ysidro. At the same time, he notices how unhuman all the vampires are: their stillness, paleness, how even Ysidro constantly thinks about what he should and should not tell to Asher. In the end, Asher can’t know if he can trust Ysidro.

Lydia is the second point-of-view character although she only gets a few, short POV scenes. Even though at the start of the story she seems like a victim or a plot device, she turns out to be a more interesting character. She’s a research doctor and once she realizes that vampires are real, she starts to research them from a medical point-of-view. She’s meticulous and determined which isn’t really a surprise because she had to battle her own father in order to get into Oxford university and become a doctor. I really liked how Asher and Lydia just matter-of-factly trusted each other to be cool and smart.

Now these are vampires I really enjoy reading about! They are monsters who feed on humans so that they can continue to live. Ysidro explains that they also need to kill humans or their minds become slow and dull, and they will become so careless that people will find them and kill them. Also, the blood must be fresh so it can be stored. They can also affect the minds of humans and control humans so that killing them isn’t a problem.

The vampires are helpless during the day because they are unconscious. In a bit of a twist, silver burns them. Asher didn’t try crucifixes so I don’t know if they would be effective. However, Asher researches vampire stories and points out that vampires appear in folk tales before Christianity.

Some of the vampires kill poor people off the streets while others want to “play with their food” and become close to their victims first. The killed vampires are the latter variety, and Asher and Lydia research their habits. They are mostly women vampires who lure rich men and get money off them before killing them. This is a chilling reminder that these vampires don’t think like humans and don’t have human emotions anymore.

The plot centers around two mysteries: who is the killer of vampires and what the vampires are in this world. Ysidro makes an off-hand comment that fairies aren’t real so apparently there aren’t other supernatural creatures about. There’s a lot of tension in the plot but not a lot of violence. Still, the plot moves at a brisk pace.

My first love among the superhero comics were the X-Men. I started with the Finnish edition, of course, in the middle of Claremont and John Romita Jr.’s run back when there was just one X-Men comic even in US: the Uncanny X-Men. To this day, I like JRJR’s art a lot.

I read the comics in this collection in the Finnish edition in black and white in a publication called Ihmesarja which reprints classic Marvel tales about Spider-Man, X-Men, and Fantastic Four. I also own a (regularly colored) collection of the Dark Phoenix Saga in English.

The collection starts in the middle of a long storyline where Jean and Hank have been separated from the rest of the X-Men and in fact the duo thinks that they are dead. Similarly, the rest of the group thinks that Jean and Hank are dead. The X-Men consists of Cyclops (as the team leader), Storm, Colossus, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Banshee who lost his powers in the previous issue. They have made a long journey from the Savage Land to Japan. They are currently trying to get back to US.

However, their plane is forced to land to Canada where the Alpha Flight wants Wolverine back – no matter if he wants to return or not. Of course, the X-Men aren’t going to stand for that. First they try to lose themselves among the people of Calgary but end up fighting the Alpha Flight anyway for a couple of issues.

The next issue is a quieter one. The group has managed to return to the X-Mansion where Colossus trains and angst about his uselessness. Cyclops is dating Colleen Wing and Storm returns to Harlem where she apparently spent her first years. We also get a brief glimpse of Professor Xavier, who is in a far away galaxy with his beloved Lilandra, and Jean in Scotland where she encounters a strange man.

The next couple of issues are action-packed when Spider-Man, the X-Men, and their dates are kidnapped into Arcade’s Murderworld. Colossus is brainwashed into attacking his friends.

The next issue’s again more of a breather and develops upcoming plots. Dr. Moira MacTaggert is testing Jean’s new powers, Magneto is musing about his life, and the X-Men and the Beast are finally reunited, and the X-Men learn that the Beast and Jean are alive. The issue end ominously. Scott phones the Muir Island, Lorna Dane answers but then she screams and the call is cut off.

The next three issues deal with the reality-warping Proteus.

And then the Dark Phoenix Saga gets into high gear. We’re also introduced to Dazzler and Kitty Pryde.

Then it’s the aftermath of the previous story. Scott recaps his life with the X-Men and Jean, and leaves the group.

In the next issue Angel has rejoined X-Men and is throwing off their fighting skills. Kitty is the newest member and and she’s settling into her new life. Wolverine and Nightcrawler visit Canada and try to clear up Wolverine’s status there. Instead, they meet Wendigo.

In the next issue Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Shaman, Snowbird, and the Guardian battle Wendigo.

Then it’s time for another classic tale: Days of Future Past which is a basis for an alternative future where all super beings are either dead or in concentration camps.

Next up is Kitty Pryde vs. a “Demon” where she proves to herself that she can be an X-Man.

The final story seems to center around Cyclops but it wasn’t published in Finland, so I haven’t read it.

I really, really liked this collection. Days of the Future Past and the Dark Phoenix Saga are two of my favorite X-Men comics ever, and the Proteus story is very good, too. The intervening stories aren’t too bad, either.

This collection introduces Kitty Pryde who’s one of my favorite characters (depending on the writer, though). She’s one of the few women geniuses in comics, and IMHO undervalued. Here, she’s younger and more insecure than in later stories which I find adorable. She’s also a good balance to the experienced superheroes who take the Danger Room, aliens, and interstellar travel for granted.

Dazzler is also introduced here and even though she’s much underused later, I like her sound-to-light powers and her artistic character. Too bad that she never had a career as an international pop singer. People might like mutants more, now.

Storm starts her career as the leader of the X-Men which changes her drastically, later. Here she’s still the weather goddess who doesn’t kill but she’s already very protective of Kitty.

The X-Men are a small, close-knit group here and they don’t even actively search for other mutants nor encounter them very often. Beast is the exception, being a member of the Avengers. The contrast to the current day expanding X-Family is huge. When I pick up a new X-Men comic, I feel like I don’t know half of the characters there, which is not a good feeling after I’ve read the comic over two decades.

I have to say that I didn’t really buy the plot that the X-Men thought that Beast and Jean are dead. For a few weeks or months, sure, maybe. But Beast is an active Avenger. Surely he must have been on the news? On the other hand, if he was dead wouldn’t the media start asking where he is? The X-Men traveled for several months. Surely, one of them would have watched news? Also, Colleen knew the whole time that Jean isn’t dead. It was mentioned a couple of time that she and Scott talked a lot. Didn’t they talk about Jean even once? A passing mention? “Jean was looking good when I last saw her. She’s coping well.” “Jean? But she’s dead!”